Africa Is a Country

Let the music

Let the music

By
Hinda Talhaoui

Hinda Talhaoui, originally from Paris but based in Brooklyn, drops the second of her posts highlighting the music of her hometown.

Sefyu in a still from the music video for "5 Minutes."

This is the second in my weekly series of popular music from my hometown.  Here‘s a link to my first contribution. This week’s it’s the world of popular rap. Rap style, allow me to reintroduce myself: I am known as Sean’s “French-Algerian connection.” I grew up in the Paris suburbs and now live in New York City. If you wonder how I stay on top of music in Paris, I mine the playlists of her friends back home.

First up is Algiers-born and Montreal-raised Zaho, who is big in Paris. See what she does with the  Bangladesh instrumental for Lil Wayne’s “6 Foot 7” for her song, “En avant la musique.” (We also suspect that’s an Angelique Kidjo sample about 0:46 into the song.)

Zaho’s second album “CONTAGIEUSE” comes out in December.

Bonus: Zaho freestyles with popular rapper La Fouine, on a tune that breaks with his usual, braggadocious style.

Later this month Nessbeal, a veteran of the French rap battles, drops his fourth album, “Sélection Naturelle.” This is the video for the first single “ force et honneur.”

Sefyu never shows his eyes. And he won’t next week when his latest album, ‘Oui je le suis’ (Yes I am) comes out on Thursday. In the video for “5 Minutes,” the lead single off the new album, he keeps that posture. (Random fact: he was a promising footballer when he got injured and became a professional rapper.)

Finally, some nice beats from Richie&Beats. This is “H@y Baby” from his forthcoming (2012) project “Since 1985/ I’@m…MisterBeats.”

Further Reading

Fuel’s errand

When Africa’s richest man announced the construction of the continent’s largest crude oil refinery, many were hopeful. But Aliko Dangote has not saved Nigeria. The Nigerian Scam returns to the Africa Is a Country Podcast to explain why.

Fragile state

Without an immediate change in approach, Somalia will remain a fragmented country populated by self-serving elites seeking foreign patrons.

Coming home

In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging.

Imaginary homelands

A new biography of former apartheid homeland leader Lucas Mangope struggles to do more than arrange the actions of its subject into a neat chronology.

Business as usual?

This month, Algeria quietly held its second election since Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted in 2019. On the podcast, we ask what Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s second term means for the country.

The complexities of solidarity

Assassinated in 1978, Henri Curiel was a Jewish Egyptian Marxist whose likely killers include fascist French-Algerian colons, the apartheid South African Bureau of State Security, and the Abu Nidal Organization.